Memeorandum

March 19, 2009

Who Doesn't Love The JournoList?

How great is the JournoList, that off-the-record electronic salon where liberal journalists and policy gurus can exchange views, and which is emphatically *not* an echo chamber?

Let's see - Matt Yglesias of JL on the AIG furor - it's a distraction:

But it’s not healthy to just go ’round and ’round in circles over this
issue endlessly. If 18 months from now the economy’s still shrinking
and unemployment’s at 15 percent, nobody’s going to feel particularly
happy about the fact that we stuck it to some scumbags from AIG back in
early ‘09.

News of Bernanke's "money from helicopters" maneuver is below the fold on the Wall Street Journal's front page (though they do have a good roundup of expert reactions elsewhere on the site). Same goes for The Washington Post.
Everyone, however, has continuing, above-the-fold coverage of AIG's
bonuses, which are about one-ten thousandth monetary value of the Fed's
move.

I have to say, I'm starting to find
the obsessive "what did Geithner/Obama know and when did he know it"
line of questioning a little tedious. Yes, it's worth establishing a
rough chronology so we know if public officials are telling us the
truth. But the endless preoccupation by my colleagues in the
media--when did the Fed tell Treasury, when did Treasury tell Geithner,
when did Geithner tell Obama--is getting a little ridiculous. This just
wasn't a huge substantive mistake. It was a small substantive
mistake--we're talking about a tiny fraction of the $200 billion we're
floating AIG here--and a huge political mistake. I'm just not
sure how helpful it is to reconstruct the genesis of a political
mistake in painstaking detail when we've got these huge substantive
issues to deal with.

I don't, frankly, care all that much about the AIG bonuses. The only
reason AIG isn't in Chapter 11 is technical (they're too big to fail!),
so morally I don't see any reason not to treat them as if they were
in Chapter 11 like any other failed company. That means employees
stand in line for their bonuses along with all the other creditors. On
the other hand, this whole thing really is small potatoes in the grand
scheme of things, and Tim Geithner and the United States Congress have
better things to worry about.

Don't think of the JournoList as an echo chamber - think of it as a time saver!

Let me suggest one enhancement - why couldn't they just designate one message as the JL Theme of the Day and post it at a dedicated blog. That would save us even more time since we wouldn't be seeing the same message kicked around in non-echo chamberish fashion at multiple blogs. Of course, the downside is that we would miss the pleasure of seeing different artists present their cover version of the tune of the day. Tough call.

And since you asked - if Obama is not coordinating with his Treasury secretary, who is in turn talking neither to the Fed nor his missing staff, then yes, we have a real story here.

Comments

Well, in this case they happen to be right: it's a distraction. However, it's a distraction touted by our demagogue-in-chief as a "core principle" and hence worthy of discussion (or derision, or whatever). And personally, I'd rather these folks be distracted rather than energized to implement more of their wrongheaded agenda, so . . .

You've done us us all a service. The evidence is irrefutable that the JournoList members are just an extension of the White House spin machine. Of course, that's why they wanted to keep that secret in the first place to maintain that "journalistic" independence.

I think Nicholas Kristof (a J-Lister himself??) was on to something this morning:

"One 12-nation study found Americans the least likely to discuss politics with people of different views, and this was particularly true of the well educated. High school dropouts had the most diverse group of discussion-mates, while college graduates managed to shelter themselves from uncomfortable perspectives."

It's a distraction that is putting people doing a thankless job at risk. (Of course, since it's the Demos who have ginned up the outrage factor on this, the "Tail Gunner Joe" award has to go to Obama and Barney Frank.)

Since your story, TM, does not have much of a human face, I don't think its going anywhere -- with or without the help of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy and List-Serv.
Maybe you need a countdown of how many days of the Obama Admistration we have had without a plan for dealing with the bank mess.

We need to get rid of the plethora of journalists and news sources. The WH and Congress should set up a state news agency and tax the gross sales of all other news sources at 100%. That way the public would understand about how good the government's policies are.

morally I don't see any reason not to treat them as if they were in Chapter 11 like any other failed company.

Drum almost has it. Now, if he were to think about the employees of a company already in bankruptcy, and how such a company keeps their most important or skillful employees through the process of reorganizing, and whether they get in line with the other creditors, he'd have it.

"You will obey me while I lead you
and eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help, no one will heed you
your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold"

lock step lemmings all chanting the same mantra as they take us over the falls.....

Po-jama people!
It's a po-jama people special . . .
Take one home with you, save a dollar today
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Wrap 'em up
Roll 'em out
Get 'em out of my way
Hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein
HOEY! HOEY! HOEY!
Wrap 'em up
Roll 'em out
Get 'em out of my way
Hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein
HOEY! HOEY! HOEY!
Wrap 'em up
Roll 'em out
Get 'em out of my way
Hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein nya-nya-hein
HOEY! HOEY! HOEY!

You see, this is an Axelrod screw-up. The attempt was to further demonize Wall Street, in the public's mind Republicans, but we know better, and it has failed and become a Democratic circular firing squad. Time to sweep it under the carpet. That's why all the streetsweepers are out early.
================================================

The horse has, of course, long left the barn on this, but a trader emails with amazement on the all-consuming AIG bonus story:

The Fed yesterday committed to buy $1.5 trillion in assets, and all that we are talking about today is $146 million in bonuses for traders at AIG. I understand the politics and the optics of the situation but this is getting ridiculous. People need to get some perspective.

Just to do the math, the bonuses are equivaent to .001% of just today's new government spending.

It may not work to just say this flatly, but there was no thread about this on JList. No coordination. (Indeed, I don't know of any time when people coordinated blog posts through Jlist, but I doubt I can convince anyone of that.)

As for this AIG thing, I wrote my post before noticing Noam's. Kevin and Matt have been reading, and linking, to me since long before I started Journolist. It's an obvious point! Sometimes people simply agree about things.

It's too big to allow to just collapse chaotically, so it's being reorganized in an orderly fashion.

I think it would be useful to formalize the process in case someday another financial institution needs to be restructured due to an inability to pay its creditors, instead of turning loose bands of Visigoths and packs of wild dogs on the place, which I gather has been the practice until now.

The first thing we need is a compound noun to indicate the concepts "financial institution" and "failure".

bgates, you're on the right track. Especially the image of Visigoths and wild dogs. See, AIG, American International Group, owns assets in dozens of sovereign domains. Allowed to fail willy-nilly, there would have been court proceedings in probably at least twelve states, since insurance is regulated by the states; the federal courts, since bankruptcy is handled by the federal courts; and in the various court systems of the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, China (in Hong Kong, which introduces some extra complexity), Korea, Singapore, and I'm probably skipping some. India and Indonesia, maybe. Oh, and almost certainly the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

All of them insisting that they had precedence for any assets.

While a dozen other big firms had to mark their AIG assets to "market", causing cascading collapses, each of which would also end up in the courts of God alone knows how many states and foreign countries.

Catching on, here? There's at least one good reason people are thrashing about and don't know quite what to do with this: there really haven't been bank/investment firm failures of this scale before.

As the Romans learned, the problem with loosing the Visigoths, is that loose Visigoths are hard to round up again.

We don't believe you because it is obvious that Axelrod has putsched us all with a co-ordinated, vicious, and fascist message. If you don't realize your role, the more is the pity.
============================================

(OK, That didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to, since I couldn't get it to go to the right part of the Standard's blog page, either scroll up for the MKH item or go directly to her link here.)Drats!

In 2000 Rush had a hilarious montage of lib talking heads all using "gravitas" to describe why Bush had to choose Cheney. Here's the transcript, but the audio really illustrates the absurdity of the claim that most in MSM aren't "members" of a far left echo chamber that predates JL.

And here, Ezra, are the three C's upon which the co-ordinated message will fail, because they are forces beyond media manipulation: Capital, Climate, and China. Read it and gnash your teeth.
==================================================

"The one thing about fight club is you don't talk about fight club" it would be easier to say, which one of the 'usual suspects' is not on the journolist list.
So there is not even a pretense of objectivity anymore, right,
By the way, in other news, there's been a broadside fired from beyond the 'greater 48' directly at the stimulus, incoming expected in 3,2,. . .

It's Pravda and Izvestia all over again. Whatever happened to a free press? These JL845ers are all shackled together by the bonds of mind slavery whether they co-ordinate formally or not.
============================================

"It may not work to just say this flatly..." so why not say it obliquely or slantwise by showing us the relevant snippets of your JList, Ezra? And if you claim there are none, remember your cred ain't great on this street.

I doubt my ability to persuade you on this point, but there was no coordination about this on JList. No discussion. (As a matter of fact, I can't recall a single instance of blog post coordination through Jlist, but you'll have to take my word on that.)

As for this AIG matter, I wrote my post before noticing Ezra's. George S and Matt have been reading, and linking, to me for years. Besides, lots of people agree on this! That happens sometimes.

One despairs of using reason to convince conservatives on the matter, but JList flatly had nothing to do with AIG. Nothing at all. (Indeed, the very notion of reducing the erudite discussions on Jlist to a format so necessarily vulgar as a blog could never be discussed, not that you paranoids could accept such a simple truth.)

Re this AIG business: I wrote my post before noticing Kevin's or Ezra's. Noam started reading me almost a decade ago, and linking me soon thereafter. Of course progressives agree! We're all smart, so we're generally all correct.

You and your JList buddies give the phrase "herd of independent minds" completely new meaning. If you have nothing to hide MAKE THE MEMBERS OF THE LIST PUBLIC. If not, get used to people thinking you're a tool and a fool.

Quick note while I prep for This Week -
This is a tough crowd, but for what it's worth, we just don't talk at the level of individual blog post topics on JList. It's a big-picture forum.

Is it the case that several individuals who share a capacity to make inferences might be spurred to write about similar topics after being presented with a common fact pattern? Sure. But that's hardly news.

It may not work to just say this flatly, but there was no thread about this on JList. No coordination. (Indeed, I don't know of any time when people coordinated blog posts through Jlist, but I doubt I can convince anyone of that.)

As for this AIG thing, I wrote my post before noticing Noam's. Kevin and Matt have been reading, and linking, to me since long before I started Journolist. It's an obvious point! Sometimes people simply agree about things.

"Noam":

I doubt my ability to persuade you on this point, but there was no coordination about this on JList. No discussion. (As a matter of fact, I can't recall a single instance of blog post coordination through Jlist, but you'll have to take my word on that.)

As for this AIG matter, I wrote my post before noticing Ezra's. George S and Matt have been reading, and linking, to me for years. Besides, lots of people agree on this! That happens sometimes.

From the minor subject of AIG, wingnuttia has now descended to the...what's Reynold's favorite, "nano"-level "scandal" of JList. JList members don't need to share notes on AIG. We have a common political framework, and usually respond to public policy matters with a generally shared tone. Does everyone who aces the SAT "coordinate", or do we all just get the answers right?

Yeah man, conservatives aren't always groovy enough to get it, but I had nothing to do with spreading the message to JList about AIG. Nothing at all. I just find new ways to say old things, and then shift the blame to someone else when it blows up in my face. Like when your friend exhales right when you're leaning over him to get the Doritos.

Ok. About AIG, which nobody is talking about.
I made the call that nobody cares about it before I ever even heard of Matt or Kevin or Ezra. Noam started reading me almost a decade ago, and writing the same kinds of things I say soon thereafter. Of course progressives agree! We're all smart, so we're right, and if you don't agree I'll write a bill calling for social justice and give it to Ambinder to write up as his own idea.

As I said when Dodd changed his story he really wasn't changing his story. Sure it was he who put in the AIG bonus exception but everyone would have been excepted out if it weren't for him. Also Geithner made him do it.
Everybody-Does my tuchis look fat in this samba?

Now onto what I'm surpised hasn't been mentioned; why has this suddenly become such a nugatory story?

Of course it's because we just learned yesterday that it was Barry who insisted this be inserted by Dodd into the porkulus.
Had we learned yesterday that is was due to Bush's Treasury Dept insisting on it Noam, Ezra etal would undoubtedly consider it perhaps the most outrageous event since Dick Cheney made it out of DC in anything other than an orange jumpsuit.

Re Scheiber at any rate, it's interesting that despite TNR commenters pointing out for several days that the bonus kerfuffle is a redirect from the bigger, $169,835,000,000 f-up, Scheiber didn't pick it up until this afternoon.

iow, after the kool kids on JournoList ratified it as acceptable. Before today, Scheiber was following the herd, with about a dozen Shocked, Shocked! style posts on the bonuses.

He's very close with commies like Chavez who is Medea Benjamin (Code Pink's head) patron and the patron of that Kennedy brat who peddles his oil to the poor here (taking it ou of the starving Venezuelan economy).
He is close also with redcelebs like Bianca Jagger who once was his girlfriend.

May Bee, If you'll look into Chris Dodd's past you'll find a sixties radical who has always had a soft spot for Marxists.

Look at his activities in the seventies and eighties. I think idealism has turned into rot and corruption though--as his little move for the AIG execs shows.

He is in the forefront of the pro-Cuba club.

I suspect strictly venal reasons. My guess-- Someone has already made extremely lucrative deals with the Castro brothers (can we say Michael Corleone meets George Orwell's Pigs?) and there's a pile of gold to be made the minute the US lifts the embargo.

MayBee:"Dodd has a special place in a lot of the left blogger's hearts, and I'm not sure why."

He supports Chavez who is Media Benjamin'sw (Code Pink's) and young Kennedy's patron. He's close with redceleb Bianca Jagger who used to be his girlfriend and as far as i can tell loves every central and South American commie around.
From their point of view what's not to love.
(And until recently he got all those rich guys in Ct to send him money so he was cost free--the capitalists supporting the best friend the commies have in the Senate.)

And don't forget that Greenwald, Firedoglake, etc., etc. were all out tooting the same note about the reichwing nutters trying to blame Chris Dodd for the loophole that gave AIG the bonuses the day before Dodd admitted he was the one who put the loophole there.

Oh for a screenshot of Memeorandum. It's like an orchestra where they're all reading from the same sheet music. Because they are.

Deb, Axelrod has seen the polls and knows his potempkin teleprompter is losing the marvelous middle--and how!

Now what?!

Why shore up the base!

If these tea parties take off, expect massive demonstrations of sojourners, marxist professors, CPUSA members, ACORNs, LaRAZAs, the Teamsters and other rag tag sorts--formerly know as the antiwarantinuclearproliferationantiglobalizationantiwar movement--to protest IN SUPPORT OF their hero Barak Hussein Obama. So much for being Against da man!

They live to protest. And they know that the media will multiply their numbers by a factor of ten.

"One despairs of using reason to convince conservatives on the matter, but JList flatly had nothing to do with AIG. Nothing at all. (Indeed, the very notion of reducing the erudite discussions on Jlist to a format so necessarily vulgar as a blog could never be discussed, not that you paranoids could accept such a simple truth.)"

"One despairs of using reason to convince conservatives on the matter, but JList flatly had nothing to do with AIG"

And as I said just yesterday (and so did Ambinder, Hamsher and Greenwald, etc) One despairs of using reason to convince conservatives on the matter but Dodd had nothing to di with the AIG bonus exception. Nothing."

What I really like about this is how it must make Obama think. Here, he supposedly knew about it on Thursday, so he could work up a co-ordinated outrage by Sunday, but by Wednesday Dodd's a liar and by Thursday, Treasury put the bonuses in. Now, Obama ought to be wondering whether he himself has been played. Or he'd wonder if he is anything but an extension of his teleprompter.

Note too, how he's the Hell out of Washington while Axelrod tries to unscrew this screw-up. Was he sent out, and why? We may have elected Obama the President, but he isn't the President. Who is?

I think this is a template for future crises. Get the Man out of Washington to bullshit the populace while the powers behind the throne try to sort it out. Show me I'm wrong. If I am, why isn't Obama in Washington right now, trying to soothe Congress?
===========================================

As Tom Lehrer said, satire is dead, they are going to put the new headquarters for Homeland Security, in one complex, on the grounds of St. Elizabeth psychiatric hospital, home of psychos, presidential assasins like John Hinckley,traitors like
Ezra Pound, what an Indian burial ground, ala Poltergeist wasn't available.

Where does one begin with this idiocy, well apparently putting in one massive, actually
two massive campuses, is a good idea, have these people seen '24, and the seasonal fate of CTU. Than we must guard against
"man made disaster" the new new euphemism for terrorism,

Chicago Tribune: "A "Tonight Show" spokeswoman said the president plans to chat up his economic plan and other topics with Leno over three segments. Asked if Obama will be funny, an unidentified White House official told The New York Times, "As funny as the times allow."

Can you imagine the WH focus grouping jokes and rejecting those that are too funny?

The chief auditor overseeing the spending of the $787 billion in stimulus funds is warning that some waste or fraud is regrettably inevitable.

In prepared testimony before the House oversight committee, Earl Devaney says the challenge for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board he chairs is to significantly minimize any such loss.

Devaney warns that he thinks federal agencies will have great difficulty attracting and hiring enough contract professionals to minimize the risks associated with moving the money fast enough to accomplish the recovery act's goals.